August 19, 2007

I’ve been trying to post every weekend, but the plan got interrupted when I got hit hard on Thursday with a fever, shakes, headache, nausea, etc. (Still, I went out with my colleagues that night to see Mama Mia for the fifth time; it was harder to enjoy than usual, but I still floated out of the theater.) Went to Beijing United today and the doctor said it would take me two weeks more to fully recover, and gave me the usual goodie bag of pills and sachets and vitamns. I guess God doesn’t want me to blog at this point in my life. And now, back to sleep.

We all know that MP3 is a format of audio file that’s very very popular today for listening to music, especially music stored on portable players. I myself am also a fan of music. But I like to share my music with others. I think that’s probably a trait more acutely seen in Asians, that’s partially why pirating is so rampant in Asia. Anyway, If I like a song, I like others to hear it as well.

For example, I often see some lovers who “split” the two ends of earphones, one person use the left ear piece, the other use the right ear piece, so they can listen to the same music together. But it is obviously very inconvenient, as those two must stay close together due to the short wire of the earphones (of course if they are lovers, I suppose they’d like to stay close anyway). Of course, we can also use speakers in a room, but that may disturb those who don’t want to listen to the music, and your neighbors may complain if you play it in your room too loudly.

Therefore, this post suggests a new method. I name it as “Lovers’ Mp3″. In other words, a pair of lovers can use 2 separate sets of earphones to listen to the same song at the same time. If the player is hung around the neck of one person, then the two can even hug each other and dance while they listen to the same music privately. How romantic that is.

Of course, we can also consider having 3 or 4 or 5 sets of earphones, so a group of people can listen to the same music together. Of course, with more earphones, it is better to implement a wireless reception, just like cordless phones.

This way, one group of people can peacefully dance to their music on a park, while other people cannot hear their music and will think they are freaks. But of course each member of that group is hearing the same melodious tunes to themselves. This way, they can enjoy themselves together without disturbing others.

To extend this concept further, we can implement small sensing devices under a person’s teeths and lips. So that if a person wants to talk “privately” with another, he/she only needs to breath and move the lips, and the sensors will record those movement and map those movements into the corresponding speech (like if a person opens his mouth wide, it would map that as “Ah”, etc etc) , and privately send those speeches as audio signals to the targeted person’s sensors. This way, 2 people can talk in a “private” channel without letting anyone else hear them. So this way, you’ll see two people moving their mouths rapidly but do not hear any sound, but in fact they can hear each other in their private communication channel through their sensors.

This concept can even be used in the military for secret communications between 2 soldiers on a battle field, it is much more convenient and quicker then typing on a keyboard.

Actually that’s what they call THE YELLOW PERISH. Waiting for a superhero-catroon where the hero mutated after contact with one of those dangerously toxic, bacteria and fungi loaded sandstorms from China.

BTW, get better soon, Richard.
I’d suggest a little ABBA abstinence for a week or so. Even the most harmless tunes can have a bad effect if consumed in too high doses. Perhaps small doses of Heavy Metal after breakfast wouldn’t be a bad idea too. Just to get in balance again, you know. It’s all about the balance Chinese doctor allways says.

what better example of yin and yang than two girls (AA) and two guys (BB)? Actually, when I was feeling my very most miserable, on Friday afternoon, I listened to the one bubble-gummy song of theirs that always makes me happy in spite of its saccharine quality. Works like a charm.

Rich, hope you get well soon. And if for some reason you still aren’t getting enough sympathy, take to heart the following, which has worked well in alleviating the concerns of the families in China who’ve been “advised” to stay at home and having to go to the internet to hear news of their loved ones while they are trapped in the flooding coal mines.

“Nature has no sympathy, people have sympathy, but the Communist Party is the most sympathetic.”

PS, shortly after my return to the West, I adopted a new puppy of German descent, and when I had that nightmare hallucination of my Chairman Mao doll chasing me around, my German puppy gripped the Mao doll in his jaws and ripped it to shreds, and then my puppy said to me, in German,

“Kaempf’ gegen die Anfange!”

Apologies to Richard and to Shulan if I botched up the German grammar as I usually do, but what my puppy – who has bad German grammar -
MEANT to say, was: “Fight the beginnings” of tyranny….

dude… it’s like last april in here… lightyear, fat cat, shulan, ivie… freaky. maybe richard, you should stop boiling the tap water… illness seems to draw much less inane commentators than NHYRC and snow…

I read the following from a Dog Owner’s Guide about a common growing pain among puppies: chewing. My puppy, also a small/medium cross breed, is now going through a chewing phase. I therefore find this advice particularly inspiring:

‘Teach “no bite” to eliminate attempts to chew parts of human bodies. Puppies should never be allowed to teethe on people parts. Never. Biting family members is an attempt to establish dominance. Even toy dogs try to become leader of the family pack if given the opportunity. When a fast-growing guardian breed is allowed or encouraged to mouth arms and legs, he will quickly become unruly.’

Get well, Richard…..here’s another topic for when you get back: You can’t make fiction like this:

China bans reincarnation

In one of history’s more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.” But beyond the irony lies China’s true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region’s Buddhist religious establishment

@Ivan: well, I like cocker spaniels, but poodles – along with poms and pekes – bring to mind socialites and mahjong-playing tai-tais. I’m afraid I’m not a fan of the small dogs. I thought you’d have a Golden Retriever or even a Shiba Inu or something.

Did you get your puppy from the humane society (since you mentioned it’s a cross-breed)? Not from a pet store or a backyard breeder, I hope.

Anyway, I’m mostly a cat person. I have a Siamese moggie. Like most Siamese, he’s intelligent and affectionate, but never slavish in his affection. Because cats, unlike dogs, call no one master (or mistress.)

Well I’m an old hand at handling canines, and I checked this one pretty carefully; he’s in perfect health and prone to bursts of zooming-mania, joyfully running around in orbit.

Cockapoos are actually selectively bred, even though not yet officially recognised as a new breed.
Cross-breeding the poodle with spaniel tends to maintain the high intelligence of the poodle but reduce the typical poodle neurosis. And considering how poodles originated in Germany, would kind of make sense for them to be neurotic and obsessive. The English spaniel blood breeds the German neurosis out of them.

Poodles are not nice dumb toy dogs (like Pekingese, for instance). They are hunting dogs. Some have even been used as army dogs for despatch to the battle field. They are highly intelligent, very energetic and extremely hardworking. Poodles have coats similar to sheep; they don’t shed and therefore are suitable for people (such as me) who suffer from allergy. Their wonder qualities made them one of the most popular family pet dogs.

Cookapoos are known as Spoodles in Australia. Here breeders also cross-breed poodles with Labradors, Maltese, Schnauzers, etc, to produce a new generation of “designer dogs” known as Labradoodles, Maltese Poodles and Schnoodles. This Youtube clip is a recording of an Australian morning program where they introduce the audience to these beautiful creatures. Enjoy it!

I’m sure poodles have all the abovementioned qualities and more, but all the poodles I’ve ever encountered (although most were the toy variety, which Ivan’s isn’t) were neurotic, nippy, and yappy, yappy, yappy. However, that may be a problem of irresponsible breeding and not of the breed itself.

As for labradoodles, schnoodles, cockerdoodles and all the “designer dogs” out there not recognized by the AKC…you know what most of us call them?

Mutts.

And you don’t need to pay top dollar for one. Millions of them are currently languishing in animal shelters, animal rescues, and humane societies.

As this becomes more and more a poodle discussion I have to give my two (German) cent to it.

I didn’t know that they originated from Germany (and I surely would disagrie with Ivan about the specific character that would give them), but they play a role in German culture in as far as in Goethes “Faust” the devil disguises as a poodle and when Faust finds out his reaction is one of the most cited quotes from German literature: “Das also war des Pudels Kern”. (So that was the poodles core)

I know. My puppy didn’t start demanding vodka from me until I started feeding him red meat. That’s when he broke into my gun cabinet.

PS, HELP! I’m being held hostage! Among his lists of demands are a case of vodka poured into the toilet bowl, with a little “girlie-drink” umbrella sticking out of it! (Well he DOES know how cute he is…)

About

A peculiar hybrid of personal journal, dilettantish punditry, pseudo-philosophy and much more, from an Accidental Expat who has made his way from Hong Kong to Beijing to Taipei and finally back to Beijing for reasons that are still not entirely clear to him…